Willenson Law, LLC

Welcome to Willenson Law, LLC

Marni Willenson

Willenson Law represents plaintiffs in class action, civil rights, wage theft, workplace rights, and other complex civil cases. We use the legal system to enforce the rights of people who have suffered harassment, discrimination, wage theft, retaliation, and other unfair and unlawful treatment.

Marni Willenson has represented employees in class action and individual discrimination lawsuits for more than twenty years. She was named an Illinois Super Lawyer in employment law each year from 2012-2018.

In the firm’s latest news, on November 10, 2017, we filed suit on behalf of a potential class of hundreds of female correctional officers at the Cook County Jail alleging that they have been chronically subjected to a sexually hostile work environment resulting from the Sheriff’s Office’s acquiescence in extreme forms of sexual harassment by male detainees including indecent exposure, brazen masturbation in front of them, groping, sexually degrading insults and slurs, and threats of sexual violence. The lawsuit also includes female sergeants and lieutenants, and civilian, and health care personnel at the Jail. We are co-counseling the lawsuit with Joshua Karsh of Hughes, Socol, Piers, Resnick & Dym.

The new lawsuit is one of several the firm has filed for groups of first responder women — paramedics, firefighters, and now sworn sheriff’s deputies — battling sex discrimination in their jobs protecting the public. On September 19, 2016, in one of our lawsuits challenging sex discrimination by the Chicago Fire Department, the United States Court of Appeals struck down a physical performance test that unfairly eliminated women from paramedic jobs for more than a decade. The court agreed that the test discriminated against female paramedics and served no legitimate purpose. This is a victory for all women who have been rejected for first responder and other “non-traditional” positions on the basis of invalid tests and gender stereotyping — and for all job applicants seeking fairness in the hiring process. To read the decision of the court of appeals, click here.

The test video also demonstrates how disconnected this discriminatory and unlawful test was to what paramedics actually do.

Willenson Law will continue litigating cases involving discriminatory employment tests, sexual and racial harassment, and other forms of discrimination. The public benefits with diverse workforces, hiring processes that select applicants based upon their actual capabilities and not gender or racial stereotypes, and workplaces free from all forms of harassment and discrimination.